Instead of using a simple lifetime average, Udemy calculates a course's star rating by considering a number of different factors such as the number of ratings, the age of ratings, and the likelihood of fraudulent ratings.

Local business marketing course: SEO, social media & more

Local business marketing course: marketing with search, social media & more to get new customers starting today

4.9
(39 ratings)

Instead of using a simple lifetime average, Udemy calculates a course's star rating by considering a number of different factors such as the number of ratings, the age of ratings, and the likelihood of fraudulent ratings.

* OVER 900 DELIGHTED STUDENTS HAVE TAKEN THIS LOCAL BUSINESS MARKETING COURSE

Made the course more actionable

Added full section on business card marketing

Added full section on flier marketing

This course is full of ideas and strategies geared specifically for how to promote a local business. Each lecture presents one idea, and gives a brief tutorial on that idea.

The course is intended for small business owners, and should take about an hour to complete.

The reason I made this local business marketing course is that local small business owners usually struggle with promoting their business. The first thing people usually think of are Facebook, Twitter, Flyers and business cards to promote their businesses. Those are fine, but there is so much more out there, and so many ways that are more effective.

Every lecture in this local business marketing course discusses a new marketing idea and explains the basics behind it. Obviously I could not go into too much detail on each topic because some topics like SEO or Facebook marketing require their own course (I actually have full courses on those topics!). So this course has a brief tutorial of each of the strategies, and leaves it up to you to take it and run with the ideas presented in the course.

In addition to the course lectures, you get my help and advice! Students are able to start discussions and message me with private questions. I answer 99% of questions within 24 hours. I love helping students who take my courses and I look forward to helping you.

What kinds of businesses can be promoted with the strategies in this local business marketing course?

With the strategies in this local business marketing course, you can promote a wide variety of businesses. Some of the kinds of businesses you can promote are a restaurant or diner, coffee shop, barbershop, nightclub, local event, business selling t-shirts, most kinds of stores ranging from boutiques to grocery stores to jewlery shops, animal care or grooming, lawn care or landscaping businesses, moving businesses, gym, frozen yogurt or ice cream shop, a deli, liquor store or a sandwich shop, a beauty salon or a hair salon, a spa, a daycare business, a hardware store, commercial cleaning or residential cleaning, car wash, general contractor business, dog walking or pet sitting, martial arts studio, or a dance studio.

Here is a list of potential online businesses you can promote using the strategies in this local business marketing course: blogging, affiliate marketing, elearning, create a channel on YouTube, become an author and sell books on Amazon and the Kindle, or become a freelancer or a local concierge.

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MONEY BACK GUARANTEE

The local business marketing course comes with an unconditional, Udemy backed, 30 day money-back guarantee so you can try the course risk free. This is not just a guarantee, it's my personal promise to you that you will succeed ... just like my thousands of other Udemy students.

Sign up for this local business marketing course today, and let me help you get more clients.

Let's make this local small business marketing course a community, and not just a course. Feel welcome to comment and ask questions. I love hearing from people, and I am here to make your experience in the course better.

In this section I explain how to create a website for your local small business. In order to have a website, you need to choose a good domain name, so in this lecture I explain how to find a good domain name for your business.

How to easily find a domain name for your local small business

03:44

In this section I discuss how to create a WordPress website for your local small business by hiring freelancers from UpWork, or how to build your WordPress website on your own. Almost all small businesses need a website, and in this tutorial I explain how to get your own website in a few days cheaply or for free.

How to set up your website quickly and professionally

03:18

In this lecture I talk about how much you should expect to pay for your domain name and website hosting on an ongoing basis.

Example of a perfect local business website with all high conversion elements

03:41

+–

SEO (search engine optimization) for local small business

12 Lectures
36:46

In this section of the local business marketing course I talk about local SEO. Local SEO is EXTREMELY important. If you rank highly in Google search for the keywords that potential customers will search, you can get many clients, and build a big business on top of that. So pay careful attention to this SEO introduction because you will need to make the most of it.

SEO section overview of what we will cover in this section

01:41

WordPress Yoast plugin

01:32

Introduction to why keywords are so important

03:06

Google Keyword Planner tool

01:31

Local business keyword research example to get many more keywords

05:25

Short tail keywords vs. long tail keywords

02:37

How to balance long-tail and short tail on the same pages

06:06

How to get as much as possible from your title and keywords meta tags

03:30

Basic on-page elements that are seen

04:04

In this tutorial I show you what factors are the most important ones when it comes to getting your website to rank highly in Google search.

NEW! Top SEO ranking factors from 150 industry experts

02:14

In this part of the course I talk about Google Citations, why it is so important for new local business websites, and how to get your Google Citations.

Google citations for new local websites and how to get them

02:33

Blogging for local businesses - pros and cons, when and how

02:27

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Off page SEO and link-building

5 Lectures
26:26

How to rank higher with intent matching

04:41

10 ways to get backlinks to get your website to rank higher

08:46

What makes a good backlink for SEO

06:41

How social sharing will boost your SEO

02:08

How to rank (almost) any page in Google top 10

04:10

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Ranking in other websites like Yelp and the Google Map

4 Lectures
13:15

Did you realize that you can also rank YouTube videos in Google search? In fact, it is often much easier to get a video about your business to rank in Google search than it is for your website. In this tutorial I explain how to make a YouTube video rank in Google and do SEO for it on YouTube and Google SEO. A video can really boost your local small business marketing because videos can be very highly converting and easier to get views for that web pages.

How to get a highly converting video to rank in search results

05:48

The first and simplest step in your work on local SEO is to sign up for Google Places For Business. It used to be called Google Local. They keep changing the name for this. Whatever its name is, this will put your business on the Google map that comes up when people search locally.

Local small business SEO is not just about your website. You can have your business listings rank in Google from Yelp, YellowPages, and other local business listing websites. In fact, since those sites are more authoritative in Google, they will often outrank your website in SEO so you should definitely put your business there, and make sure you have great reviews there so you can rank highly on those sites as well.

How to get your business on Yelp and how to rank highly in Yelp search & Google

02:59

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Social media marketing for your local small business

8 Lectures
30:58

We are starting a new section in our local business marketing course. This section is all about promoting your business on social media. Let's get started.

Social media marketing overview for your local business

02:36

This is a recent addition to this course. On October 3rd, 2016, Facebook released a new feature that will help your local small business sell more products. This feature will allow you to create and join local buy and sell groups where you can sell your products. It is kind of like Craigslist, but easier to use, and more powerful because it takes advantage of Facebook's 1 billion users.

NEW LECTURE: New Facebook feature: now you can sell to local groups

02:34

I might re-film this lecture in the near future to make it more practical. But for now, in this lecture I discuss the power of YouTube for local business marketing. I already covered this partially earlier in the course.

YouTube for promoting your local business

02:52

In this lecture I talk about how to promote your local business with your personal Facebook group. It is tricky to promote your business with your personal Facebook group because you don't want to annoy or offend your friends, but there are some ways it can be done in a nice way.

How to promote your business from your personal Facebook profile

01:28

In this lecture I discuss how to promote your business from a Facebook page. Facebook page usually has less engagement, but you can run Facebook ads through it.

Promoting your business from a Facebook business page

01:44

In this lecture I talk about an advanced Twitter marketing strategy with automation to get more followers and engagement on Twitter, and even sell your services there using automation tools.

NEW! advanced Twitter marketing strategy to drive sales and branding

10:30

This lecture has a small tip on increasing Facebook engagement for your posts.

NEW! How to increase engagement on Facebook by using images

04:00

This is an advanced hashtag marketing strategy which you can use to promote your local business by using the hashtag for your local city and other local hashtags.

Hashtag tutorial and an advanced hashtag marketing strategy

05:14

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Business card marketing & business networking for your local business

7 Lectures
41:48

With this lecture let's start the business card marketing and networking part of our local small business marketing course. In this video I explain where to get good designs for your business card.

Practical example: how to choose from 4,000 ready-made templates

05:11

In this lecture I explain how to get your business cards professionally designed. Once you have your business cards, you can do more business networking and business card marketing locally.

Practical example: get your business card professionally designed for just $5

02:21

In this lecture I explain some proper and effective body language techniques for effective in person business networking to help you appear friendly and confident when you are out promoting your local business.

Body language for successful networking

06:34

In this tutorial I explain how to create your business pitch that you can use while you are doing your business networking. Your business pitch is important because if it is interesting and clear, it will get people's attention and interest, and they might engage further if they are interested.

Short pitch under 30 seconds

08:25

When you are doing your business card marketing and networking, you should understand how to get people excited about your business and your products. AIDA is a classic sales pattern which is designed to get people interested and then excited about your business so that you can then close the sale. You don't necessarily want to sell things during business card networking, but if you see that there is a possible sale to be made, why not make that sale? Although usually, you want to build business relationships first, before selling.

Some of the kinds of businesses you can promote are a restaurant or diner, coffee shop, barbershop, nightclub, local event, business selling t-shirts, most kinds of stores ranging from boutiques to grocery stores to jewlery shops, animal care or grooming, lawn care or landscaping businesses, moving businesses, gym, frozen yogurt or ice cream shop, a deli, liquor store or a sandwich shop, a a beauty salon or a hair salon, a spa, a daycare business, a hardware store, commercial cleaning or residential cleaning, car wash, general contractor business, dog walking or pet sitting, martial arts studio, or a dance studio, therapy offices, psychology personal practice.

AIDA to help you sell during business card marketing and networking

10:55

More tips on how to get people to get excited about your business.

How to make people WANT to take your business card and be fascinated with you

06:59

This is another business card marketing strategy to promote your local business. You can leave business card dispensers in several convenient places so that people can pick up your business cards even when you are not there.

Outdoor card dispenser/holder

01:23

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Flyer marketing to help you promote your local small business

10 Lectures
35:50

This is a new section in our small local business marketing course. In this section we are going to discuss how to promote your business by passing out fliers to get people from your local neighborhood to learn about your business. You can call this hyper local marketing because it targets your local neighborhood.

Why flier marketing is so effective

00:44

Some of the businesses that do best with flier marketing are local businesses. Here are some of the examples. Some of the kinds of businesses you can promote are a restaurant or diner, coffee shop, barbershop, nightclub, local event, business selling t-shirts, most kinds of stores ranging from boutiques to grocery stores to jewlery shops, animal care or grooming, lawn care or landscaping businesses, moving businesses, gym, frozen yogurt or ice cream shop, a deli, liquor store or a sandwich shop, a a beauty salon or a hair salon, a spa, a daycare business, a hardware store, commercial cleaning or residential cleaning, car wash, general contractor business, dog walking or pet sitting, martial arts studio, or a dance studio, therapy offices, psychology personal practice.

Types of businesses that do best with flyers

02:04

In this tutorial I show you how to find thousands of designs for fliers so you have many designs to choose from.

Practical example: how to choose from 5,000 ready-made templates

03:47

Example of how to get your fliers professionally designed for more effective promotion.

Practical example: how to get a flier professionally designed for just $5

02:20

This is an important lecture because it explains what it takes to make your fliers effective. The most important things are inspiring and attention grabbing images and headline, attractive offer, and a clear call to action.

4 elements of a good flier

05:43

Tips on how to create a great offer for your fliers. This will help to boost your sales conversion.

How to create a great offer

07:38

Tips on how to choose an inspiring photo for your fliers.

How to choose a good photo

01:17

How to create the offer details to get people interested and engaged with your fliers.

Extra offer details for your fliers

04:57

Tips on adding a call to action to your fliers to boost the effectiveness and conversion of flier marketing for your local business.

Adding calls to action to your flier

05:02

We can't talk about flier marketing without discussing where to hand out fliers and how to hand out fliers because if you don't distribute your fliers, there is almost no flier promotion to speak of. You can distribute fliers by giving them out on the street, sliding then under people's doors or doors of other businesses, and leaving them on counters of other local small businesses to cross promote.

Where and how you can hand out the flyers

02:18

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Other strategies to promote your local small business

9 Lectures
17:46

In this tutorial I talk about email marketing to promote your local small business. Email marketing is very important, and I might add more lectures about email marketing for your local small business in the future.

Email list to promote your small local business

01:18

Most people who are new to marketing don't realize the power of promotions, but discounting and sale strategies can be very powerful to get people to sign up for your business because the sale has a limited date or quantity on it, and people jump on the sale price.

Discount and coupon strategies to promote your local or small business

01:10

In this tutorial I talk about strategies to give you more authority and credibility. Having more authority and credibility can get people to engage with your business, trust you more, and help you make more sales.

Establishing yourself as an expert to get trust

01:59

One effective strategy to raise awareness about your company and get clients is to put on local events. Events can get you publicity and with that boost your SEO, and get you more awareness and customers.

Events for small local service or business marketing

02:23

Some tips on how to get your local community involved in helping you.

How to get your friends and community involved in helping your business

01:18

Small tips on how your own t-shirts or hats can help you promote your business.

Hats, t-shirts and other printed materials

01:38

Tips on how to create a referral network with other businesses or professionals in your industry.